The Darkest Star
by lollygal
Summary: AU ANH. What if Han didn't come back to the battle of Yavin? Leia is stranded, Luke is injured, and Han is captured by the notorious Boba Fett. Standard disclaimers apply.
1. suddenly silenced

**The Darkest Star**

Prologue: suddenly silenced

'_We should turn back'_ Chewbacca growled to the man in the pilot's seat beside him. He would follow that man wherever he went, but that didn't mean he had to sit around complacently. Chewie had always been a wookie of action, yet here he was being pulled away from a cause he believed in. Strangely enough, Han solo believed in it too, he just didn't realize it yet.

The man in question shook his head "They're nice people, Chewie, but they're nothing but trouble. We're in enough of that as it is." _'That hasn't stopped you from doing the right thing before.'_ Chewbacca retorted. Han stopped putting coordinates into the hyperdrive. Chewbacca just had to use the words 'the right thing' didn't he? Han did have a nasty habit of doing the right thing, all right. It had gotten him in trouble every time. Perhaps that was why he had left the alliance, every detail of that base practically screamed of 'the right thing'. Doing the right thing would only end up with him owing an outstanding debt to Jabba. Although he could reason out why he left, something inside kept on screaming at him to turn around.

"We'll pay off Jabba, then go back. I promise." He told his first mate, and finished putting in the coordinates. He was tired of doing the right thing. The wrong thing couldn't possibly get him in any more trouble. Chewbacca growled a resigned assent, and the ship went hurtling towards Tatooine.

Break…

"We're going to lose." Leia said, the last drop of hope draining away from her voice. "We've been telling you that for ten minutes now." Mon Mothma replied earnestly, "We have to get out of here." Leia shook her head stubbornly, "I'm staying here until the battle's finished." She had been so sure, she had demanded that they stay for a bit longer, certain that Luke would pull through. Then, almost as suddenly as it had come, her certainty stopped. Now, there was not enough time to safely evacuate, and it was her fault. She would not let the people who had risked their lives for this cause die while she was safe inside a transport shuttle. "Leia," Mothma tried again, "If we all die here, so does the rebellion. Someone has to keep fighting." Well, that was something Leia was good at. "Fine," she said with cutting abruptness, "but we're loading the ship to full capacity. Not just officials, either. We take whoever can fit." With that, Leia swept out of the room, leaving Mothma in an empty room wondering whether or not she was happy that she had gotten her way.

_Break…_

He had it. He had relinquished himself to the Force, and he could feel exactly when to shoot. He was almost there when a shot ran through his ship, and he found himself spinning out of control. He recovered, only to find a modified TIE fighter looming over him. He dodged, but the craft matched every maneuver he attempted. He tried a final maneuver, only to have another shot pierce his X-Wing's hull.

The next thing he knew was pain. He was not sure whether it was the impact of the crash that hurt him, or the feeling in his skull that announced the death of an entire planet, or the simple fact that he had failed them all. All he was sure of was the pain, which blinded him to the rest of the world.

_Break…_

"Is this as fast as you can go?" snapped Princess Leia, nearly giving the pilot a heart attack. "Actually, it is." He replied, "the weight of all the passengers makes it impossible to go any faster." His name was Nick Orryl, a shy shadow of a man who rarely moved away from the controls of his small transport ship. The _Valiant_ was able to comfortably seat twelve people. Leia had managed to load twenty-six. Orryl was surprised that his ship was holding up as well as it was. "Well, if you just let me drop the cargo…" Leia argued, determined to get her way no matter what. "We might end up on a desolate planet," Orryl said, attempting to explain his reasoning, "If we do, those are the only supplies we have." "Well, it hardly matter if we're dead now will it?" Leia practically screamed. The pilot could not disagree with that point. They were already being fired upon, and there was little they could do due to their sluggish pace. Orryl nodded, and Leia dumped the cargo without another word.

The _Valiant_ did go faster, and they managed to get near a planet before they were hit by blaster fire. "I don't think I can keep her up for much longer." Orryl told the princess, but she didn't pay too much attention. "General Kenobi?" Leia asked, and Orryl looked at her quizzically. "Who is that?" he asked her, but she just shook her head and refused to answer. "Get as close to the planet as you can." She instructed. He did as she said, and managed to get close enough that when the engine finally gave way, they were caught in the planet's gravity.

Orryl might have been imagining things, but it seemed to him that instead of getting faster as they should have been, the ship moved slower the closer they got to the planet's surface until they gently landed on the ground. Orryl looked around to make sure no one had gotten hurt. They all looked shocked, but fine. Leia, however, looked exhausted. "Were are we?" a passenger asked. Orryl accessed his ship computer in order to find out, but it was taking some time. "Dagobah." Leia said, then promptly fainted. Orryl looked at his computer, which had finally found an answer. "That's right, actually. We're on Dagobah."

_Break…_

Han and Chewbacca walked out of Jabba's palace. "You know, that was surprisingly easy." Han commented. Chewie agreed. They traveled to the palace, gave Jabba the money, and then walked out with nothing more foreboding then one of Jabba's laughs. However, it seemed far too simple to the two companions. The life of a smuggler was never simple, especially when that smuggler owed money. "The quicker we get to the ship, the better." Han told Chewbacca, "I think that if we hurry, we might be able to help them out." 'If we had turned around before coming here, we would have been able to help them.' The wookie replied. "Alright, I'm sorry. Next time we won't pay off the bounty on our heads, and let Boba Fett catch us." Han said, the sarcasm obvious. "It seems it wouldn't have mattered anyway." A voice said, causing Han to turn around. Standing behind them was Boba Fett himself, and he had a blaster pointed at both of them. "You have got to be kidding me." Han muttered, and slowly raised his hands above his head.

_Break…_

The pain swarmed through him, flooding out everything. This is it, he thought, I'm dying. He did not fear death, in fact he reached for it, wanting an end to the pain and agony that clouded his mind and blocked out everything else. It blocked out the image of Obi-Wan, who was desperately trying to reach him, it blocked out the sound of stormtroopers talking about a bounty hunter and a smuggler, but most importantly, it blocked out the visage of a darkly-clad man, blinded by pain in his own right, who carried him to the medbay and refused to let him die.


	2. bedrest

**AN: Since this story is going on pretty much everywhere at once, I'm going to dedicate each chapter to a main character/situation, at least until events start coming together. In this light, I am really sorry for the cliffhanger. Pease review, and thank you to all of those who did.**

**Chapter One: Bedrest**

"Is he stable?" Darth Vader asked the medic droid, keeping his eyes on the young patient. "He is now." The droid replied, "The impact damaged his lungs, so we were forced to replace some tissue and install a breath regulator. Besides that, he suffered some bad burns and several broken bones which will take a while to heal. He will be asleep for a few more hours, and in bed for at least a month, but healthy otherwise. You know, Lord Vader, if you had intended to save this man all along, you could have shown some restraint." Vader said nothing. It was times like this that he considered getting a new medical droid: the one he had was too chatty, and had an eerie ability to know too much. As a matter of fact, he did not intend to keep the boy alive when he had fired the shot. It was only after the X-Wing had hit the edge of the Death Star that Vader found himself flying after it. Even now he had no idea why he had saved the boy, or what he was going to do with him now that he was in no danger of dying.

The best option would be to turn him, and that would be a difficult task indeed. The young man had a feeling of rightness about him, a purity so great that it forced Vader to watch his progress through a window outside of the medbay. Vader knew it would be difficult to break that feeling, and wasn't quite sure if he wanted to. That was the enigma of the young man lying unconscious in front of him: whatever harm he wished upon him, he could not follow through on. Whatever plan he made, he did not wish to execute. It was almost as if he cared for this boy, which was nonsense of course.

He would turn him anyway. Through a lifetime of missed opportunities, he had learned how to recognize when one was passing him by. He no longer had the power he used to, and he was tired of bowing to the man who had taken everything from him. He could not let a boy with more strength in the force than Vader had seen for a long while continue on his own path just because he didn't want to _hurt_ him. He had hurt many people before, killed even. He had stood by doing nothing twice while a planet died, refusing to let the screams of agony he heard in his head be anything more than fuel. The young man was no different from all of those lives. He was one among thousands, but Vader was offering to turn him into one among two. How could that be seen as anything but generous? "Inform me when he wakes." He instructed. The droid nodded, then scurried back to the medbay, uncomfortable anywhere else. Vader stared at the patient a moment longer, attempting to solve the mystery of why this child had such an effect on him, then walked away to see to other matters.

_Break…_

"Luke." Obi-Wan's voice shouted, "Luke!" Luke looked around. He could not determine where he was. In fact, it seemed like he was nowhere. The sky was black, without a star in sight, and he could not tell if there was a ground to stand on. "There is no need to be afraid Luke, you are safe. For now, anyway." That didn't calm Luke down. "Wait, what do you mean by for now?" he yelled into the darkness, "Where am I? Where are you?" "Here." Obi-Wan said, and suddenly there he was. Luke looked at his old mentor, now nothing more than a transparent blue ghost. "Am I dead?" he asked. Obi-Wan shook his head and laughed a little. "No, Luke, you are not dead" he replied, "You're just dreaming." Luke nodded his head, finally understanding, but Obi-Wan wasn't done yet. " You have to listen to me, Luke." The apparition said, bending over and reducing his voice to a low whisper, " You are about to undergo a journey that will determine the fate of the galaxy, and where you're going I can't follow. You must remember everything I've taught you if you are to survive." Luke stared blankly at his old teacher. "But I don't understand." He said. The old Jedi sighed, "You will." He stated, "you will." And with that, Luke opened his eyes.

The bright white room was a stark contrast to the dream he had just had: sharp, angular, and empty of anything that wasn't strictly necessary. While Luke had the feeling of belonging earlier, here he felt only an icy efficiency. After a while, he realized that he was in a medbay, and that a series of computers were loudly buzzing to signal that he was finally awake. A medical droid hastened to Luke's bedside and promptly began asking him questions. "What are you feeling?" the droid asked. Luke was not quite awake yet, so it took a while to answer. "Um… confused, mostly." He replied, "Scared too, and tired. I'm also in pain… is any of this helping?" The droid nodded, and entered information in the computers. "All of it is, actually. You see, we had to repair some lung damage and I have to calibrate the machinery to the rest of your body. This is usually done by rapidly graphing your response to several stimuli, but since you're going to be here a while, I figured that it would be easier on you if we took some time." It said, and finished entering information on the computers. The buzzing stopped, much to Luke's appreciation. "Wait…" he said, "I have a mechanical lung? Does that mean I'll be…?" Luke cut off at that point and cupped his hands to his mouth, making exaggerated breathing noises. The computers started buzzing again. "No, of course not. That kind of technology became obsolete years ago" the droid almost shrieked, "Now stop doing that, you'll throw off the graph." It entered more into the machines and started grumbling, "Really, why is it that every patient with a lung problem makes the same joke?" Luke laughed, setting off the alarms again. "That's happy." He commented, and the droid sighed, but entered it once more into the grid. "This will get easier." The droid said, "But for right now I will be here almost all of the time. If you need anything, and I'm not here, just tell anyone that TI-83 is attending to you, and they'll either find me or get you what you need." Luke nodded, which hurt badly, and said, "TI-83. I'll remember that. I'm Luke, by the way." He would have gone on, but something told him that he shouldn't reveal his last name. He trusted his instincts. "Luke Starkiller." He finished. The droid nodded again, then started up a conversation about Luke's medical history.

_Break…_

The boy was awake. Vader knew it even before TI-83's messenger could tell him, and he was already halfway there by the time droid and cyborg met. Now, the dark lord stood in an unseen corner, watching, pained by the boy's purity, but determined to stand there anyways. The boy's name was Luke, a name that brought back too many memories for his liking, and it was instantly obvious that his positive energy field was no mistake. Once more, Vader had something dangerously resembling feelings for the young man, but pushed them away. He would turn Luke, and claim his own rightful place as master: it was his destiny.

The Sith lord stood in secret, gazing down at his future apprentice, when Luke finally turned to TI-83 and asked a question that had been burning inside him, "Where am I?"


End file.
